Talk:astern of

RFD discussion: February 2019–April 2020
It is not necessary to have a page for astern of defined as a preposition as astern is an adjective and of is the preposition, and each of those are separately defined. In the usage example on the page ("a wake astern of her") the usage of astern is akin to east in "a mile east of here", and we wouldn't define east of as a preposition with its own page. Mike (talk) 11:34, 9 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Doesn’t the argument equally apply to ? Also, don’t you mean adverb? In these uses, astern and east are not serving as attributes, so a more likely part-of-speech assignment is that they are adverbs. --Lambiam 07:15, 10 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Usage such as following shows that astern fits in the adjective word class:
 * It appears as a predicate (unlike an adverb) and is gradable (unlike a noun). Other usage shows that in can appear attributively (unlike an adverb) in phrases like astern power/thrust. DCDuring (talk) 15:34, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I do not disagree, but observe that all of that equally applies to, which is now classified solely as an adverb:
 * And this use of looks more adverbial to me:
 * --Lambiam 10:21, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
 * When pondering questions of definition and usage, I like to go back to see what others have done previously. My modern (1980s) A.H. collegiate, the 1918 Webster's Collegiate, and the 1910 Webster's New Intl. only refer to ahead as an adverb. The 1914 Century Dictionary defines it as "prep. phr. as adv. or adj." while the 1919 Concise Oxford says it is an adverb and predicate adjective.
 * In your quote from 1920, ahead is being used attributively, and perhaps in being a nautical sense of the word it is a reflection of how it was historically used. (Compare "two ahead turbines and two astern turbines" vs. "two forward turbines and two backward turbines".) I assume that Wiktionary would include any such historical usage.
 * Returning to "astern of", I can see how it would be comparable to "ahead of". -Mike (talk) 09:09, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
 * And this use of looks more adverbial to me:
 * --Lambiam 10:21, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
 * When pondering questions of definition and usage, I like to go back to see what others have done previously. My modern (1980s) A.H. collegiate, the 1918 Webster's Collegiate, and the 1910 Webster's New Intl. only refer to ahead as an adverb. The 1914 Century Dictionary defines it as "prep. phr. as adv. or adj." while the 1919 Concise Oxford says it is an adverb and predicate adjective.
 * In your quote from 1920, ahead is being used attributively, and perhaps in being a nautical sense of the word it is a reflection of how it was historically used. (Compare "two ahead turbines and two astern turbines" vs. "two forward turbines and two backward turbines".) I assume that Wiktionary would include any such historical usage.
 * Returning to "astern of", I can see how it would be comparable to "ahead of". -Mike (talk) 09:09, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
 * In your quote from 1920, ahead is being used attributively, and perhaps in being a nautical sense of the word it is a reflection of how it was historically used. (Compare "two ahead turbines and two astern turbines" vs. "two forward turbines and two backward turbines".) I assume that Wiktionary would include any such historical usage.
 * Returning to "astern of", I can see how it would be comparable to "ahead of". -Mike (talk) 09:09, 13 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Kept - no consensus to delete. - TheDaveRoss  13:42, 17 April 2020 (UTC)